Motorola
DynaTac 2004

Expected Third Quarter 20041st
April 2004

Motorola announced today that it is
releasing a 21st anniversary edition of the original
DynaTac cellular phone, built to the same physical specifications
as the original DynaTac but using modern components.

Motorola's lead engineer on the project,
Vesna Durak said "We took the opportunity to upgrade
the internal components. The DynaTac 2004 is, of course,
a digital handset rather than an analog one, available
in either CDMA or GSM configurations. Battery life is
hugely improved - we've managed to get 24 hours talktime
and one month's standby by using Lithium Polymer cells.
We've also squeezed in a 262K colour 128x32 pixel display
panel just above the keypad. We've tried to remain as
true as possible to the original design. We added Bluetooth
to it, primarily because we could, but we felt that
Java support and polyphonic ringtones wouldn't be true
to the original design."

The DynaTac 2004 is not a small device,
weighing almost 800 grams, it's around eight times heavier
than a standard phone, and that antenna makes it over
a foot long, although we did manage to unscrew it in
testing and it made no noticeable difference to the
phone's reception.

If you can live with the unwieldy size,
then this is a highly useful handset with unprecedented
talktime, and the combination of EDGE high speed data
with Bluetooth was impressive. There's clearly some
technology crossover from the Motorola
A840 here. We were a little disappointed to find
that there wasn't a built-in digital camera as there
certainly would have been room. Possibly even space
for an FM radio. Or a microwave oven.

We like the DynaTac 2004 very much,
and we think this retro thing might well catch on. We
anxiously await Ford's remix of the Capri Mark IV to
go with this fantastic handset.